The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-08-03
HEAVEN PORTRAYED.
WHAT THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BE-
FORE ARE DOING.

The Cathedral Bell of Heaven Needed
by AlI-Dr. TaImage. VIII Visit All of
Fair Notice.
THE HAMPToNs, July. 31.-The Rev.
T. Dewitt TaImage's sermon for this
morning was on the "Employments Of
Heaven and his text, Ezekiel i, 4:
Snow, it came to pass in the thirtieth
year, in the fourth month, in the fifth
day Of the month, as / was among the
captives by the river Of Chebar, that the
heavens were opened. -
Ezekiel with others, had been ex-
patriated, and while in foreign slavery
was standing on the banks of the royal
canal, which he and other serfs had been
condemned to dig by the order of Ne
buchadnezzar- royal canal, in the
text, called the river Of Chebar-the illus
trious exile had visions Of heaven. In
deed, it is almost always so that the
brightest visions Of heaven come not to
those who are on mountain top of pros
perity, but TO some John Oh desolate
Patmos. or to some Paul in Namertine
dungeon. OF 10 some Ezekiel standing on
the banks Of ditch he had been com
PEELED 10 dig-yea to the weary, to the
heart broken, to those whom sorrow has
bauished.
The text is very particular to give US
the exact time of the vision. 1t was in
the thirtieth year, and in the fourth
month and in the fifth day of the month
50 you have had visions Of earth you
shall never forget. You remember the
tho month
member the day, you remember the
hour. Why may not we have some such
vision this morning, and it be in the sixth
month and in the fourth day Of the
month?
The question is often silently asked,
though perhaps never audibly pro-
pounded: "What are our departed
Christian friends doing nowt" The
question is more easily answered than
you might perhaps suppose. Though
there has come no recent intelligence
from the heavenly city, and we seem de-
pendent upon the story of eighteen cen
turtles ago, stil l think we may from
strongest inference decide what are the
present occupations Of our transferred
kinsfoIk.
After God has made nature he never
temperament. You never knew a man
phlegmatic in temperament to become
sanguine in temperament. You never
knew a man sanguine i'll temperament to
become phlegmatic in temperament. Con-
version plants new principles in the soul,
but Paul and John are Just as different
from each other after conversion as they
were different from each other before
conversion. If conversion does not eradi-
cate the prominent characteristics of the
temperament neither will death eradicate
them.
You have, then, only by sum in sub
traction and n sum in addition to decide
what are the employments of your de
parted friends in the better world. You
are to subtract from them all earthly
grossncss and add all earthly goodness,
and then you are to come TO the conclu-
sion that they are doing now in heaven
what in their best moments they did on
earth. The reason that SO many people
never start for heaven is because they
could not stand it if they got there if it
should turn out TO be the rigid and formal
place some people photograph it.
We like to come to church, but we
would not want to stay here to next
Christmas. We like to hear the hallelu-
jah chorus, but we would not want to
hear it all the time for fifty centuries. 1t
might be on some great occasion it would
be possibly comfortable to wear a crown
of gold weighing several pounds, but it
would be an affection to wear such
crown forever. In other words, we run
the descriptions of heaven into the ground
while we make that which was intended
as especial and celebrative to be the ex-
elusive employment of the heaven. You
might as WELL if asked to describe the
habits of American society, describe a
Decoration day, or Fourth of July, or
an autumnal Thanksgiving as though it
We're all the time that way.
am not going to speculate in regard
to the future world, but L must by newt
able laws of inference and deduction and
COMMON sense conclude that in heaven
we will be Just as different from each
other as we arc now different, and hence
that there will be at least as many differ
ent employments in the celestial world as
there are employments here. Christ is to
be the great love, the great Joy, the great
rapture, the great worship of heaven;
but will that abolish employment? No
more than loves on earth-paternal, filial,
fraternal, conjugal love, abolish earthly
occupation.
In the first place, l remark that all
those of our departed Christian friends
who on earth found great Joy in the fine
arts are now indulging their tastes in the
same direction. On earth they had their
gladdest pleasures amid pictures and
statuary, and in the study of the laws of
light and shade and perspective. Have
you any idea that that affluence of faculty
at death collapsed and persisted? Why
so, when there is more for them to look
at, and they have keener appreciation of
the beautiful, and they stand amid the
very looms where the sunsets and the
rainbows and the spring mornings are
woven?
Are You so obtuse as to suppose that
because the painter drops his easel and
the sculptor his chisel and the engraver
his knife that therefore that taste, which
he was charging and intensifying for
forty or fifty years, is entirely obliterated?
These artists, or these friends of art, on
earth worked in coarser material and
with imperfect brain and frail hand
Now they have carried their art into
larger liberties and into wider circumfer-
ence. They are at their old business vet,
but without the fatigues, without the
limitations, without the hindrances of the
terrestrial studio.
Raphael could now improve upon his
masterpiece of michael the Archangel"
now that he has seen him. and could inn
prove upon his masterpiece of the ''Holy
Family" now that he has visited them.
Michael Angelo could better present the
LAST Judgment after he has seen its
flash and heard the rumbling battering
rams of its thunder. Exquisite colors
here, graceful lines here, powerful CHA
roscuro here; but I am persuaded that
the grander studios and the brighter gal
leries are higher up by the winding
marble stairs of the sepulchre, and that
Turner and Holman, Hunt and Rem
brandt, and Titan and Paul Veronese, if
they exercised saving faith in the Christ
whom they portrayed upon the canvas,
are painters yet, but their strength of
faculty multiplied ten thousand fold The
reason that God took away their eye and
their hand and their brain was that he
might give them something more Timber.
more wieldy, more skillful, more mul-
tiplitant
Donot, therefore, be melancholy among
the tapestries and the brio brac, and the
embroideries and the water colors, and
the works of art which your departed
friends used TO admire. Do not say:
Il am sorry they had to leave all thess
things Rather say: Il am glad they
have gone up to higher artistic oppor-
tunity and appreciation. Our friends
who found SO much joy in the fine arts
on earth are now luxuriating in LOWERS
and Luxembourgs celestial
remark again, that all our departed
Christian friends who in this world were